Cats hate water, but they love fish—and these two stereotypes contradict each other. Although today’s furry house rulers can enjoy fishy feasts while staying high and dry, since time immemorial, wild cats have apparently been willing to get their paws wet to snag some tasty treats.
This discrepancy is just one clue that blithely assuming that all cats hate water is a mistake, says Wailani Sung, a veterinary behaviorist at Joybound People & Pets, a rescue and veterinary service in California. “I think when we generalize like that, we do animals a disservice,” she says. “Cats are all individuals. Some cats like water. Some cats don’t.”
In that way, they aren’t so different from canines, says Carlo Siracusa, a veterinary behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania. “We tend to think cats are this unique creature that doesn’t like water, but there are many dogs that do not like water,” he says.
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One key difference between the pet species might have contributed to the stereotype, Sung notes: pet cats tend to stay indoors, whereas dogs are more frequently brought out into the world and taken on adventures, potentially giving them more opportunities to get used to and enjoy being in water. Most pet dogs are also regularly exposed to water through bathing, but cats generally groom themselves with their tongue—no water needed.
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Generalizations aside, cats do have some perfectly good reasons to avoid water when possible. Cats have whiskerlike hairs all over their body that help them sense the world around them, and getting these hairs wet might disrupt how they perceive their environment, Sung speculates. Wet fur might also leave a cat vulnerable to the cold, Siracusa says, because cats—like most furry mammals—use their fur to trap air as insulation.
And as prey animals, cats aren’t usually fans of unpredictable situations. Despite their fierce hunting skills, cats carry the evolutionary memory of being vulnerable to hungry predators and threatening environments. That means cats are often uncomfortable when their freedom of movement is hampered or when they’re put in uncertain and unfamiliar situations. “Cats in general are averse to new stimuli that they feel they cannot control,” Siracusa says.
Because healthy cats can groom themselves, there’s usually no veterinary reason to worry if your cat can’t stand water. “Most cats, if they are not ill, are perfectly able to take care of their coat, and they always look gorgeous,” Siracusa says. He encourages owners who want the option of bathing a cat to start slow and let the animal get used to each step in the process while still feeling safe.
House cats, particularly those that are fed dry food, may need to be encouraged to drink water. That’s because, over evolutionary time, cats have gotten much of their water from the food they eat rather than needing to find it in the arid home landscapes they evolved in. Siracusa encourages owners to provide multiple water bowls, including at least one that’s located away from feeding areas and preferably at a higher elevation in the main living space.
Using a spray bottle of water to punish a cat for misbehavior is a bad idea regardless of how the animal feels about water, both vets agree. Often the response is too delayed for a cat to understand what the incorrect behavior was, leaving them considering their owner unpredictably threatening, Sung says. Instead she recommends confronting bad behaviors more gently. “We definitely want to use positive reinforcement to reinforce the behaviors you do want to see, and you want to distract and redirect when you see something you don’t like,” Sung says. For example, she says, if your cat jumps on the counter while you’re making dinner, perhaps try training them to instead sit on a chair next to you, where they will be praised, petted and comfortable.
And if your cat is one of the many that like water, congratulations! Enjoy the high jinks that likely arise. “Some cats just love water. They sit at the sink, and they meow at the owners until they turn on the faucet,” Sung says. “I have certainly had cats that like to play with water in their water bowl, and they splash it everywhere.”